The Warrior Within Read online

  It took five months to get home again, five months in which Karsman acted as the Muljaddy’s bodyguard and facilitator, interpreter and manservant. Assisted by the remaining maid, he cooked and cleaned and helped the Muljaddy dress for formal occasions. If she sometimes required more personal services from her servants, Karsman had no memory of them afterward. Discretion was part of the guarantee.

  When they reached home at last, Karsman waited a week. Then he ran, without really knowing what he was running from. He slipped out of the palace early one morning and hitched a ride on a road train. For the next three months, he begged lifts and did odd jobs, working his way along the Road, farther and farther from the capital. In the confusion of a Passing Festival, he changed his name and joined a new Temple. By the time the Temple’s Muljaddy finally ordered a halt in an almost pristine Builder city stuck between a belt of sun swamps and a range of dry hills, more than four thousand kilometers of Road lay between Karsman and his birthplace.

  If his sometime mistress ever looked for her lost investment, Karsman never heard about it. He kept his head down and did his best to blend in. He never told anyone about the personas. As the years went by, he started to believe that he had left his past behind him.

  Now, all of a sudden, he was not so sure anymore.

  * * *

  “Different how?” asked Steck. He and Karsman were huddled in the lee of the tower where Steck had been working, sheltered from the worst of the wind that blew across the Road from the swamps to sunward.

  “Did I do anything unusual? Say anything out of character?”

  Steck shrugged. “I wasn’t with you most of the day. When I was, I guess you were a little quieter than usual. But you’ve been quiet a lot lately. I assumed it had something to do with that girl from the Festival.” He used his knife to scrape caked-on carbon from the muzzle of his cutting torch. “I’m glad you didn’t go with her in the end. The place would be dull without you.”

  “Dull is not exactly our problem at the moment,” Karsman said.

  “True that,” agreed Steck. “What do you think the Muljaddy has done with those guys?”

  “No idea. I hoped the guards would just kick them out of town. But I don’t think they’re ready to leave yet. If the guards had tried anything, we’d probably have heard the fight from here.”

  No one had seen the three strangers since the night of Doro’s murder. If the Muljaddy had sent them away or thrown them in one of the holding cells under the Temple, they must have submitted quietly. There had been no evidence of a fight in the vicinity of the Temple. But in any case, Karsman doubted that even a full squad of Temple guards would be able to make the strangers do anything they did not want to do.

  A little distance from where Steck and Karsman were sitting, a crew was working in one of the nearby ruins. Karsman watched them carrying thin sheets of flexible metal out of the building. He looked up and down the Road, at the vast towers that rose on either side of it, their tops wreathed in perpetual halos of pale mist. Ten years of work by the people of the strip-town, industriously prying free any loose materials they could find, had little more than scratched the surface of the city. You could easily take the buildings for untouched, unaltered from the day that they had been built by whatever godlike Intelligences had created the Road and all the enigmatic cities along it.

  “Why did you ask me if you had done anything different?” Steck asked.

  “No real reason.”

  It was no longer possible for Karsman to deny what had happened. He had been gone, completely submerged, for the whole of the previous day. To judge by the way he felt now, he must have been up part of the night as well. One of his personas had taken over, taken over so completely that he had no memory at all of the events of the day before.

  He no idea which persona it had been. His first fear was that it had been Warrior. But if Warrior had taken over, there would be traces of violence. He had searched his body for cuts and bruises and found none. As far as he could tell, there were no dead bodies lying around.

  But if not Warrior, then who?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kido’s was still dark and silent the next morning when Karsman got up. Apparently the soldiers’ threats had been enough to frighten the shopkeeper into staying closed.

  His stomach growled. He had always preferred to buy most of his food and water from Kido’s, accepting the Muljaddy’s dole as little as possible. In practice that translated to two or three days of mandatory worship every nine-day, and six or seven days eating provisions that he bought with scrip issued in return for salvaged materials. All the food ultimately came from the Muljaddy’s food processors, but at least buying it from Kido spared him having to act out the rituals of a religion that meant nothing to him.

  Now, however, he had no option. His own supplies were almost exhausted. If he wanted to eat today, he would have to play by the Muljaddy’s rules.

  Before he reached the Temple, however, he realized something strange was happening.

  The Temple sat a little ways from the end of the strip-town on a plot of its own, surrounded by a decorative fence marking the boundary between the sacred and the profane. Normally, the gate to the Road stood open, allowing free access to the Temple. Today it was closed, and a small detachment of Temple guards stood beside the gate, hands on their weapons. A crowd had gathered outside the fence, keeping their distance but not showing any inclination to disperse. The crowd, Karsman saw, was mostly made up of men.

  “They won’t let us in,” someone told Karsman as he pushed his way to the front. “They say only women can go in now.”

  Karsman was not surprised to see that the officer in charge of the guards was Magnan, the younger of the two captains. Karsman and Curinn might have a grudging respect for each other, but Magnan was another matter. He was a bully by nature, quick to insist on the cringing obedience that he seemed to feel was his due. He had a particular dislike for Karsman, who he clearly saw as a permanent challenge to his authority. Naturally, if anything ugly was happening, Magnan would be in the middle of it.

  “Come on,” Magnan called out to one of the women who hovered uncertainly at the front of the crowd. “Or are you planning to hang around out there all day?”

  The woman’s husband pulled at her arm. “Don’t go in there, Nisa,” he told her. “Either they let us in together or we don’t go in.”

  “What are you doing?” Karsman asked.

  Magnan looked at him, a sneer on his face. “Mind your business,” he said. “Mind your business and wait your turn. Women first. Men after.”

  “Since when do we have turns?” Karsman said.

  “Since the Muljaddy ordered it,” said Magnan.

  A man standing behind Karsman tugged at his sleeve.

  “My wife’s in there. And my daughter,” he said.

  “Your wife and daughter are perfectly safe,” Magnan told the man, raising his voice slightly. “Now, the rest of you women, come forward. You want to go in and pray and eat, go in now. Or you can wait here and stay hungry. You choose.”

  “We’ve never done things this way before,” Karsman told him.

  Magnan put his hands on the hips of his fatigues.

  “Well, this is how we do things now,” he said. “And this is how it’s going to be for as long as the Muljaddy wants it. Clear?”

  Karsman was conscious of the eyes of the men around him. He could feel them willing him to do what they were afraid to do. He knew that if he backed down now his reputation would never be the same again. He could still turn his back and walk away, but it would make things harder in the future.

  He sighed. “I’m going in now.”

  “I said, women only.”

  “And I said I’m going in.”

  The two men faced each other. Magnan was nearly a head shorter than Karsman, but he was armed and Karsman was not. He slowly lowered his hand until it was resting on the butt of his pistol. Behind him, the other guards gripped their shocksticks m
ore tightly.

  Let me take him, said Warrior. We can take all of them.

  Karsman fought the temptation to let Warrior take control. He met Magnan’s eyes, not challenging, but simply asserting himself.

  At last, Magnan stepped to one side.

  “Go in if you want, Karsman,” he said. The sneer was still there.

  * * *

  Walking across the Temple compound, Karsman expected at any moment to hear Magnan give the order to fire, to feel the burn of bullets in his back. With a great effort, he slowed his pace, doing his best to appear nonchalant.

  Neither the order nor the bullets ever came. He reached the steps of the Temple and began to climb, setting one foot deliberately after the other. He looked straight ahead, careful not to make eye contact with the guards on either side of the door. Calm, he told himself. It’s all right. Magnan said you could go in.

  Instead of taking the stairs to the side corridor with the prayer wheels, he walked down the broad ramp that led down into the main hall. The large space was close to half full, with more than two hundred women and girls inside, watched over by the Muljaddy’s guards and a couple of priests. Karsman caught the eye of the woman closest to him and read fear on her face.

  Give me control, Warrior insisted.

  Not yet, said Karsman.

  The far end of the prayer hall was dominated by a raised dais on which stood the altar and statues of all nine gods. The Muljaddy was sitting on a throne to the right of the altar, their white robes glowing brilliantly in the light of a single spotlight, cowl drawn down to conceal their face. Next to them stood the giant soldier, watching over the crowd from behind his black visor, his arms folded across his huge chest. Karsman saw that he now wore a pistol in a holster at his hip.

  One of the other soldiers, the man named Flet, stood just in front of the dais. As Karsman watched, two Temple guards led one of the women to him. When they released her arms, she stood motionless, as if paralyzed by fear.

  The soldier reached out and took her hand. With surprising gentleness, he guided her fingers to touch a small tablet that he held. After a moment, he let go of her hand and raised the tablet so that it was level with her eyes, held it there for a few seconds, and then lowered it again and spent a few moments studying whatever it displayed. Finally, he nodded. The guards led the woman over to join a group of women squatting by the wall. As she crouched down beside them, a second pair of guards was already pulling another woman from the crowd and leading her toward the dais.

  The process repeated. The second woman was dismissed, and a third was led forward, followed by a fourth and then a fifth. The soldier worked quietly and methodically, inspecting each in turn, pausing sometimes for as much as a minute to review the results of each scan. His manner was casual and unhurried. If not for the military cut of his clothing and the gun by his side, Karsman might almost have taken him for a doctor and the black-uniformed guards for his orderlies. Only the look of fear on the faces of the women awaiting screening said plainly that something very different was happening.

  And what happens, Karsman wondered, if he finds the one he’s looking for? He looked toward the giant on the dais and saw how the man tensed almost imperceptibly as each woman was led forward. Karsman guessed that the big soldier had been appointed the executioner. He could see how it would play out: the slightest signal from Flet and the big man would move in, bringing the whole business to a quick, bloody conclusion. And Karsman would be powerless to do anything to prevent it.

  “Enjoying the show?” said a soft voice at Karsman’s side. Karsman turned to find the third soldier standing barely an arm’s length from him. The man had approached him so quietly that even Warrior had not registered his presence until an instant before he spoke.

  “What are you doing?” Karsman asked.

  “Looking for someone,” the man said. His voice was low and there was something about his manner that could almost have been mistaken for timidity.

  “Who?”

  “Just a woman.”

  “One of these women?” Karsman asked.

  The soldier shrugged. “Maybe,” he said.

  “And when you find her?” Karsman asked him.

  “We kill her. And then we go home.”

  “And if she’s not among them?”

  “Then we look for her among the rest of the women in town.” He gestured around him. “They all have to come here eventually if they want to eat.”

  “And if you still don’t find her? What if she’s not here?” Karsman persisted.

  “Then we wait. Sooner or later, she has to come.”

  Karsman looked at the frightened crowd in the center of the hall. “Who is she?” he asked. “Why do you want to kill her?”

  The mercenary looked at him directly. “Who she is is none of your business,” he said. “And neither is ‘why.’”

  He put his hand on Karsman’s arm, and it took all of Karsman’s willpower to hold Warrior in check.

  “Don’t get involved,” the soldier told him. “This isn’t anything to do with you.” He released his hold. “Now go. You and the rest of the men can come back later, when we’re done.”

  Karsman thought about letting Warrior loose. He thought that with the advantage of surprise he could probably kill or disable the smaller man. But that would leave him with the two other soldiers and most of the Muljaddy’s guards to deal with. The balance of force was overwhelmingly against him. Unarmed, without even the advantage of surprise, he could not hope to win.

  “Go,” the soldier repeated. This time Karsman obeyed. He climbed the ramp slowly, conscious of the soldier watching him. Inside him, Warrior seethed with impatience.

  At the entrance to the Temple compound, the crowd was waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “Tell them,” said Magnan.

  “The women are inside. They have not been harmed,” Karsman said. The people in the crowd stared at him, sullen and uncomprehending.

  “You heard what he said,” Magnan told the crowd. “Now get out of here, all of you. We’ll let you know when you can come back.”

  Karsman took a step toward the gate, but Magnan held up his hand. “Not you, Karsman. I’m not done with you.” He made a gesture, and the guards who had stepped back to let Karsman pass closed in around him.

  “You should show more respect,” Magnan said. “So it’s time we taught you a lesson.”

  The guards moved closer, drawing their shocksticks from their belts.

  * * *

  Karsman sat beside Kido’s store, leaning forward slightly to keep the bruises on his back clear of the wall of the store. He dabbed at his cut lip, wincing as his fingers touched the tender flesh. The guards had continued to beat him after he had fallen, raining blows across his back and his arms and legs. At least they had not used the shock function of their sticks. Being shocked was worse than any ordinary beating.

  From where he sat, he could see more Temple guards moving along the line of shacks that made up the strip-town, pushing open doors and looking in windows. Apparently the strangers were not content to simply sit and wait for their victim to come to them after all.

  We should stop them, said Warrior. Karsman paid the persona no attention. It had taken all his strength to hold Warrior back when the guards were beating him. Warrior was designed for offense, not for peaceful resistance. A beating was an attack, to be answered with equal or superior force. The notion that there might be times when you had to lie down and take a beating was outside Warrior’s way of thinking.

  He wondered if Strategist had a plan that would let him defeat his adversaries, but the persona had gone deep, barely responding. Karsman could still feel him there, lurking in the back of his mind, but he showed no inclination to be foregrounded. Was it possible for a persona to feel embarrassed? Perhaps Strategist was unwilling to admit that he had no more idea than Karsman how to deal with the situation.

  He brushed at the crust of drying blood on his lip and saw a fresh
dark smear across his fingertips. He shook his head. The beating did not matter. He had had worse beatings from the Temple guards before. What mattered was that the Muljaddy had thrown in with the outsiders. Karsman had harbored some vague plans of his own of using the power of the Temple against the strangers. Now it seemed that they were working together.

  * * *

  “You look like hell,” said Steck.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Karsman.

  I was asking for it, he thought to himself. Serves me right for always trying to take up everyone’s causes.

  That sounds very noble, sneered Strategist, but we both know that it’s pride. You always want to be the big man who everyone looks up to. One day that will get you killed.

  When did you become the voice of my conscience? Karsman asked.

  Oh, I just don’t want you screwing up my long-term plans with your poorly thought-out heroics, Strategist said.

  You have long-term plans? Do tell.

  Strategist did not answer, and Karsman felt the persona retreat again, withdrawing into the background of Karsman’s mind to sleep or scheme. Strategist was hard to like. Warrior’s homicidal eagerness might be more likely to get Karsman into trouble, but Strategist’s arrogance and perpetual pose of superiority made him harder to live with.

  There was a shout from the far side of the road and a brief scuffle by one of the shacks, abruptly terminated by the electric buzz of a shockstick. Karsman and Steck watched a group of black-uniformed Temple guards wrestle someone to the ground.

  “That’s Tofik’s house,” said Steck. He looked at Karsman expectantly. Karsman shook his head. The two watched in silence as some of the guards pulled Tofik away, his body twitching and his feet dragging in the dirt. Others forced open the door of Tofik’s shack and went inside.

  “Things are getting crazy,” Steck observed.

  “Yes,” said Karsman.

  “I don’t mean this.” Steck gestured to the guards leading Tofik’s wife and daughters from his shack, while others held back a sullen crowd of onlookers with their sticks. “I mean the other stuff.”